TEHRAN: The head of Irans atomic energy programme said on Wednesday the Islamic Republic planned to allay international concerns about its nuclear programme which Washington says may be used to produce atomic bombs.

I believe that we will remove the international concerns, Irans Atomic Energy Organisation chief Gholamreza Aghazadeh told reporters after a weekly cabinet meeting. The UNs nuclear watchdog the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) in a June report cited a number of failures by Tehran in reporting its nuclear activities and is preparing a follow-up report to be released in September.

Aghazadeh said IAEA inspectors had just concluded a number of inspections in Iran during which Iran considered all the points that the agency was concerned about. All the necessary visits and sample taking was done and I believe that there is no point which the agency will find ambiguous or have any question about, he said.

IAEA officials in the past have complained that they have been denied access to take environmental samples at some of Irans nuclear facilities. Iran has come under mounting international pressure to allow closer inspections of its sophisticated network of nuclear facilities, which include a uranium enrichment facility. Iran insists its nuclear programme is solely geared to producing electricity and has so far resisted calls to sign the Additional Protocol of the nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty (NPT). Aghazadeh said Iranian officials had held good talks in recent days with an IAEA legal team about signing the protocol. Additional protocol: He said that while most of Irans concerns about signing the protocol had been addressed in the talks both the IAEA and Tehran felt a further meeting would be needed to discuss the issue in the near future. Asked whether Iran would eventually sign the protocol and allow the snap inspections, Reuters